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Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



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The Retinue 

and other Poems 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



FAIRY GOLD 

A dainty fairy play, fol- 
lowed by a representative 
collection of Miss Bates' 
poems, including many 
not previously printed. 



Half Japan Vellum 
$1.50 net 



E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
NEW YORK 



THE RETINUE 

AND OTHER POEMS 

BY / 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 




NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON & CO 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 

1918 



v< 



/P<$>* 



Copyright 19 18 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



MAY 15 1918 



Printed in the United States of America 



©GL "289 



^ 1 



INSCRIBED 
TO 

OUR SOLDIERS OF FREEDOM 



SOLDIERS OF FREEDOM 

They veiled their souls with laughter 

And many a mocking pose, 
These lads who follow after 

Wherever Freedom goes; 
These lads we used to censure 

For levity and ease, 
On Freedom's high adventure 

Go shining overseas. 

Our springing tears adore them, 
These boys at school and play, 

Fair-fortuned years before them, 
Alas! but yesterday; 

Divine with sudden splendor 

— Oh, how our eyes were blind! — 

In careless self-surrender 

They battle for mankind. 
vii 



Soldiers of Freedom! Gleaming 

And golden they depart, 
Transfigured by the dreaming 

Of boyhood's hidden heart. 
Her lovers they confess them 

And, rushing on her foes, 
Toss her their youth — God bless them!- 

As lightly as a rose. 



viii 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Soldiers of Freedom vii 



THE RETINUE i 

LYRICS OF THE WAR 

1914 

Marching Feet 7 

Fodder for Cannon 9 

To Our President 10 

1915 

Wild Europe 11 

When the Millennium Comes ... 12 

The Morning Paper 14 

The Cry 15 

The Horses 17 

Only Mules 18 

The Submarine That Sank the "Lusitania" 20 

The Babies of the "Lusitania" ... 20 

Our Crown of Praise 21 

How Long? 22 

1916 

What Is Christ? 27 

Children of the War 29 

The Least of These ...... 30 

Mother 31 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Mist 31 

The U-Boat Crew 32 

The Red Cross Nurse .33 

To Canada 35 

The Conqueror 37 

1917 

To Peace 39 

Our President 40 

The New Crusade 41 

Soldiers to Pacifists 43 

The German-American 45 

New Roads 46 

Three Steps 47 

His Bit 48 

War Profits 49 

Babushka . .50 

Russia 52 

Out of Siberia . 53 

To Italy 55 

Jerusalem 56 

Our First War-Christmas 58 

To Heavy Hearts 59 

The Purple Thread 61 

Freedom's Battle- Song 63 

OVERSEAS 

Starlight at Sea 69 

Wings 69 

Man Overboard .71 

The Lighthouse 71 

The "Titanic" 73 

The Thracian Stone 74 

Apollo Laughs 77 

Shakespeare's Festival 78 



CONTENTS XI 

PAGE 

Lydd 79 

This Tattered Catechism S3 

Whev Cap'n Tom Comes Home .... 84 

At Stonehenge 85 

George Macdonald 86 

The Presence Chamber 87 

Spain 88 

My Lady of Whims 90 

Northward * 93 

Graves at Christiania 93 

The Death of Olaf Tryggvison ... 94 



FROM SPRING TO SPRING 

Not Yet 109 

The First Bluebirds in 

In the Oak 112 

The End of May 113 

Eavesdropping r 114 

Waywise 115 

In a Northern Wood 116 

The Creed of the Wood 117 

Our First Families 118 

The Perfect Day 119 

In August 121 

Playmates 122 

April in September 124 

A Mountain Storm 125 

Night and Morning 126 

The Sunset, Woven of Soft Lights . . . 127 

White Moments 128 

Around the Sun 130 

Beyond 133 

New Year 135 

Yellow Warblers 137 



The war lyrics here collected were w r ritten, 
with a single exception, in the years indicated, 
and so record the gradual change, experienced 
by many Americans, from consternation at 
the horror of war itself to recognition of the 
supreme issues involved. 

Nearly all the poems in this volume are re- 
printed from one or another of the following 
periodicals, — The American-Scandinavian Re- 
view, The Art World, The Atlantic Monthly, 
The Boston Transcript, The Century Maga- 
zine, The Christian Endeavor World, The 
Churchman, The C ongre gationalisi , The De- 
signer, The Forum, Good Housekeeping, The 
Independent, Life, The Minaret, The New 
York Sun, The New York Times, The New 
York Tribune, The Outlook, Scribner's Maga- 
zine, The Sonnet, Suburban Life, The Yale 
Review, The Youth's Companion. 



Xll 



The Retinue 



THE RETINUE 

Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Austrian 

Heir-Apparent, 
Rideth through the Shadow Land, not a lone 

knight errant, 
But captain of a mighty train, millions upon 

millions, 
Armies of the battle-slain, hordes of dim 

civilians ; 

German ghosts who see their works with tor- 
tured eyes, the sorry 

Specters of scared tyrants, Turks hunted by 
their quarry, 

Liars, plotters red of hand, — like waves of 
poisonous gases 

Sweeping through the Shadow Land the host 
of horror passes; 



2 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Spirits bright as broken blades drawn for 

truth and honor, 
Sons of Belgium, pallid maids, martyrs who 

have won her 
Love eternal, bleeding breasts of the French 

defiance, 
Russians on enraptured quests, Freedom's 

proud alliance. 

Through that hollow hush of doom, vast, un- 

visioned regions, 
Led by Kitchener of Khartoum march the 

English legions, 
Kilt and shamrock, maple leaf, dreaming 

Hindoo faces, 
Brows of glory, eyes of grief, arms of lost 

embraces ; 

Like a moaning tide of woe, midst those pale 

battalions 
From the Danube and the Po, Arabs and 

Australians, 



THE RETINUE 3 

Pours a ghastly multitude that breaks the 

heart of pity, 
Wreckage of some shell-bestrewed waste that 

was a city; 

Flocking from the murderous seas, from the 
famished lowland, 

From the blazing villages of Serbia and Po- 
land, 

Woman phantoms, baby wraiths, trampled by 
war's blindness, 

Horses, dogs, that put their faiths in human 
lovingkindness. 

Tamburlaine, Napoleon, envious Alexander 

Peer in wonder at the wan, tragical com- 
mander, 

Archduke Francis Ferdinand — when shall his 
train be ended ? — 

Of all the lords of Shadow Land most royally 
attended. 



Lyrics of the War 



Lyrics of the War 

— 1914 — 

MARCHING FEET 

These August nights, hushed but for drowsy 

peep 
Of fledglings, tremble with a strange vibration, 
A sound too far for hearing, sullen, dire, 
Shaking the earth. 

Even within the swaying veils of sleep 
We are haunted by a horror, a mistrust, 
A muffled perturbation, 
Vaguely aware 
Of prodigies in birth, 
Of brooding thunders unbelievable, 
Fierce forces that conspire 
Against mankind. 
We start awake ; 

7 



8 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Our eyelids down, but still we feel the beat, 

Dull, doomful, irretrievable, 

Of Europe's marching feet, 

Enchanted, blind, 

By wizard music led 

Over crushed blossoms, through the mocking 

dust, 
To baths of blood and fire. 
Beyond the seas, in these hushed hills we dread 
That hollow, rhythmic tread 
Of nation against nation, 
That ancient, bitter thrust 
Of war against a world that might be fair 
As any golden star that rides the air. 
We cannot rest for marching feet that must 
Harvest and home forsake, 
Inexorably called to take 
The road of desolation, 
Trampling on hearts that break. 
The purple glooms, all sweet 
With dewy fragrance, bear 



FODDER FOR CANNON 

FODDER FOR CANNON 

Bodies glad, erect, 

Beautiful with youth, 
Life's elect, 

Nature's truth, 
Marching host on host, 

Those bright, unblemished ones, 
Manhood's boast, 

Feed them to the guns. 

Hearts and brains that teem 

With blessing for the race, 
Thought and dream, 

Vision, grace, 
Oh, love's best and most, 

Bridegrooms, brothers, sons, 
Host on host 

Feed them to the guns. 



10 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

TO OUR PRESIDENT 

Hope of the Nations, lift thy stricken heart. 
Thyself art Sorrow, and to thee the cry 
Of battle-anguish comes more piercingly 
Than even in those months of sneer and smart, 
When thou so steadfastly didst bear thy part, 
True Champion of Peace. And now, when 

high 
The war-storm rages, when home's darlings 

die 
By mangled thousands, lift thy stricken heart 
For a white shield of mercy, torch that throws 
Its reconciling gleam across the seas. 
O thou in love and grief pre-eminent, 
Divine shall be thy comfort to appease 
These bleeding Christian armies, sudden foes 
That slaughter in a fierce astonishment. 



WILD EUROPE II 

— 1915 — 

WILD EUROPE 

Wild Europe, red with Woden's dreadful 

dew, 
On fire with Lola's hate, more savage than 
Beasts that we shame by likening to man, 
Was it toward this the toiling centuries grew ? 

Was it for this the Reign of Love began 
In that young heretic, that gracious Jew, 
Whose race His followers flout the ages 

through ? 
Is Time at last a mere comedian, 

Mocking in cap and bells our pompous boast 
Of progress ? Nay, we will not bear it so. 
A million hands launch ships to succor woe ; 
The stars that shudder o'er the slaughtering 
host 



12 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Rain blessing on the Red Cross groups that go 
Careless of shrapnel, emulous for the post 
Where foul diseases wreak their uttermost 
Of horror. Saintship walks incognito 

As scoffing Science, but Christ knows His 

own. 
Sway as it may, the wargod's fell caprice, 
The victories of Love shall still increase 
Until at last, from all this wail and moan, 

Rises the song of brotherhood to cease 

No more, no more, — the song that shall atone 

Even for this mad agony. The throne 

That war is building is the throne of Peace. 



WHEN THE MILLENNIUM COMES 

When the Millennium comes 
Only the kings will fight, 
While the princes beat the drums, 
And the queens in aprons white, 



WHEN THE MILLENNIUM COMES 13 

Arnica bottle in hand, 
Watch their Majesties throw, 
With a gesture vague and grand, 
Their crowns at the dodging foe, 
Poor oki obsolete crowns 
That Time hangs up in a row. 

When the Millennium comes 
And the proud steel navies meet, 
While the furious boiler hums, 
And the vengeful pistons beat, 
The sailors will stay on shore 
And cheer with a polyglot shout 
The self-fed cannon that roar 
Till metal has fought it out, 
But the warm, glad bodies of boys 
Are not for the waves to flout. 

When the Millennium comes, 
Love, the mother of life, 
Will have worked out all the sums 
Of our dim industrial strife, 



14 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

And every man shall be lord 

Of his deed and his dream, and the lore 

Of war shall be abhorred 

As a dragon-tale of yore, 

Myth of the Iron Age, 

A monster earth breeds no more. 



THE MORNING PAPER 

Carnage! 

Humanity disgraced! 
Time's dearest toil effaced! 
Poison gases and flame 
Putting Nero to shame! 
Bayonet, bomb and shell! 
Merry reading for hell! 
The wickedness ! the waste ! 

Courage! 

To gain their fiery goal, 

Some crumbling, blood- soaked knoll, 



THE CRY 15 

How fearlessly they fling 
Their flesh to suffering, 
Offer their ardent breath 
To gasping, shuddering death! 
O miracle of soul! 



THE CRY 

Multitudinous the cry beating on the smoke- 
veiled sky 
Since the first war-wrath burst on immortal 
Belgium, 
— Roar of cannon, shriek of shells, toll of 
earthward-crashing bells, 
Thunder of the bomb exploding, careless 
where its tortures come. 

Under all, the dreadful moan of the battle- 
field, far-strown 
With those cleft bodies left like a wreck of 
broken spars. 



16 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Oh, the Raphaels, Davids lost in that welter! 
Oh, life's cost, 
As a giant tread had crushed into dark a 
sky of stars ! 

And for every dying throb of those millions, 
women sob; 
East or west, a mother's breast is the same 
to cherish sons; 
From the Ganges, Danube, Rhone, sorrow 
wails her antiphone 
To the doomful, mad torpedo, the colossal 
slaughter-guns. 

There's no silence left on earth for the dream 
that brings to birth 
Beauty, grace, no fair space on this crim- 
soned, tattered chart, 
Not one walled and cloistered spot where on 
every air come not 
Groanings of a hurt creation, troubling all 
the joy of art. 



THE HORSES 17 

But a hope has gone abroad, a hope that 
crowns the sword; 
Faces shine with divine courage for a gain 
high-priced. 
Peace shall be the prize of strife, death shall 
yet deliver life, 
That this cry may nevermore beat upon the 
heart of Christ. 

THE HORSES 

"Thus far 80,000 horses have been shipped from 
the United States to the European belligerents." 

What was our share in the sinning, 

That we must share the doom? 
Sweet was our life's beginning 

In the spicy meadow-bloom, 
With children's hands to pet us 

And kindly tones to call. 
To-day the red spurs fret us 

Against the bayonet wall. 

What had we done, our masters, 
That you sold us into hell ? 



l8 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

I 

Our terrors and disasters 

Have filled your pockets well. 

You feast on our starvation ; 
Your laughter is our groan. 

Have horses then no nation, 
No country of their own? 

What are we, we your horses, 

So loyal where we serve, 
Fashioned of noble forces 

All sensitive with nerve? 
Torn, agonized, we wallow 

On the blood-bemired sod; 
And still the shiploads follow. 

Have horses then no God ? 



ONLY MULES 

"The submarine was quite within its rights in 
sinking the cargo of the Armenian, — 1,422 mules 
valued at $191,400." 

No matter; we are only mules 
And slow to understand 



ONLY MULES 19 

We drown according to the rules 
Of war, we contraband 

War reckons us as shot and shell, 

As so much metal lost, 
And mourns the dollars gone to swell 

The monstrous bill of cost. 

Would that we had been wrought of steel 

And not of quivering flesh ! 
Of iron, not of nerves that feel, 

And maddened limbs that thresh 

The sucking seas in stubborn strife 

For that dim right of ours 
To what no factory fashions, life, 

No Edison endowers. 

Our last wild screams are choked; you 
know 

It does not matter, for 
We're only mules that suffered so, 

And contraband of war. 



20 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

THE SUBMARINE THAT SANK THE 
"LUSITANIA" 

Spindrift white shall her victims stand 

On the ivory quay, untrod 
By living feet, when she nears Ghoststrand, 

To point her out to God. 



THE BABIES OF THE "LUSITANIA" 

Those rosy, dimpled darlings cast 

So roughly to the sea, 
Wondering their bathtub was so vast, 

Reaching for breast and knee, 

Too innocent to understand 
What hate and murder are, 

But puzzled that the dandling hand 
Had let them drop so far, 

Swallowing like milk the bitter foam, 
Dismayed to miss their breath, 



OUR CROWN OF PRAISE 21 

Our little guests from Heaven went home 
In the great arms of Death. 

O Land of Toys and Christmas Trees, 

Dear Land of Fairy Tales, 
How will your heart be panged for these 

When war's red frenzy pales ! 

God pity Germany in an 

The grieving years to be 
When through her cradle-songs shall call 

Drowned babies from the sea. 

OUR CROWN OF PRAISE 

A praise beyond all other praise of ours 
This nation holds in jealous trust for him 
Who may approve himself, even in these dim, 
Swift days of destiny, the soul that towers 
Above the turmoil of contending powers, 
A beacon firm, while seas of fury brim 
The world's long-labored fields and vineyards 

trim, 
Remembering forests and unconscious flowers. 



22 THE RETINUE, AND OTHER POEMS 

Our nation longs for such a living light, 
Kindred to stars and their eternal dreams, 
A steadfast glow whatever breakers roll, 
Cleaving confusions of the stormy night 
With gracious lusters and revealing gleams, 
— Longs for the shining of a Lincoln soul. 



HOW LONG? 

How long, O Prince of Peace, how long? We 
sicken of the shame 

Of this wild war that wraps the world, a roar- 
ing dragon-flame 

Fed on earth's glorious youth, high hearts all 
passionate to cope 

— O Chivalry of Hope! — 

With the cloudy host of the infidel and the 
Holy Earth reclaim. 

For each dear land is Holy Land to her own 
fervent sons 



HOW LONG? 23 

Who fling in loyal sacrifice their lives before 
the guns, 

But when they meet their foes above the battle- 
smoke, they laugh, 

And all together quaff 

The cup of welcome Honor pours for her slain 
champions. 

Oh, if a thousandth part of all this treasure, 

purpose, skill, 
Were poured into the crucible transforming 

wrong and ill, 
By the white magic of a wise and generous 

brotherhood, 

To righteousness and good, 
The world would be divine again, with every 

war-cry still. 

Poor world so worn with wickedness, be- 

dimmed with rage and fear, 
Sad world that sprang forth singing from 

God's hand, a golden sphere, 



24 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

O yet may Love's creative breath renew thee, 

fashioned twice 

A shining Paradise, 
Unsullied in the astral choir, with Joy for 

charioteer. 

How long shall bomb and bullet think for 
human brains? How long 

Shall folk of the burned villages in starving, 
staggering throng 

Flee from the armies that, in turn, are 
mangled, maddened, slain, 

Till earth is all one stain 

Of horror, and the soaring larks are slaugh- 
tered in their song ? 

Oh, may this war, this blasphemy that blots 

the globe with blood, 
Slay war forever, cleanse the earth in its own 

mighty flood 
Of tears, tears unassuageable, that will not 

cease to fall 



HOW LONG? 25 

Till Time has covered all 
Our guilty century with sleep, and the new 
eras bud! 

How long? The angels of the stars entreat 

the clouded Throne 
In anguish for their brother Earth, who 

stands, like Cain, alone, 
And hides the mark upon his brow, the while 

their harps implore 

The Silence to restore 
Peace to this wayward Son of God, whose 

music is a moan. 

Come swiftly, Peace ! Oh, swiftly come, with 
healing in thy feet ; 

Bring back to tortured battlefields the waving 
of the wheat ; 

Bring back to broken hearths, whereby the 
wistful ghosts will walk, 

Blithe hum of household talk, 

Till childhood dare to sport again and maiden- 
hood be sweet, 



26 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Though thou must come by crimson road, with 

grief and mercy come, 
Not with the insolence of strength, the boast 

of fife and drum; 
Come with adventure in thine eyes for the 

splendid tasks that wait, 

To weld these desolate 
Crushed lands into the fellowship of thy 

millennium. 

O Peace, to rear thy temple that no strife may 

overawe ! 
O Purity, to fashion thee a palace without 

flaw! 
O Love, the radiant heresy of a youth in 

Galilee, 

To build the state on thee, 
And shape the deeds of nations by thy yet 

untested law ! 



WHAT IS CHRIST? 2*] 
I9l6 

WHAT IS CHRIST? 



Oh, what is Christ, that we should call on 

Him? 
Wasted Armenia, in her utter woe, 
Dies in the mocking desert, calling so. 
Hyaenas tear her children limb from limb. 
The clouds, soft dimpled once with cherubim, 
Now screen the flight of Lucifers that strow 
Their fiery seed where clustered households 

know 
Twixt sleep and death one flaring interim 
Of agony, brief as the broken prayer. 
What prayer? What Christ? Himself He 

could not save. 
From first to last, when hath He saved His 

own? 
Stephen's young body, battered stone by stone, 



28 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Edith Cavell in her most holy grave, 

For His helpless host of martyrs witness bear. 



II 

Thought casts the challenge. Faith must lift 

the glove. 
Most true it is Christ doth not save the flesh. 
God's dreamy Nazarene, caught in the mesh 
Of ignorance and malice, whitest dove 
Net ever snared, took little care thereof. 
Not His to plead with Pilate, nor to thresh 
Those priestly lies. He died, to live afresh 
Spirit, not body; not the Jew, but Love. 
Love, the one Light in which all lusters meet, 
Ultimate miracle, far goal of Time ! 
Even to-day, when all seems lost, they feel, 
Those nations that like hooded sorrows kneel, 
Their prayer's deep answer, loathing war as 

crime, 
Longing to gather at Love's wounded feet. 



CHILDREN OF THE WAR 1<) 

CHILDREN OF THE WAR 

Shrunken little bodies, pallid baby faces, 
Eyes of staring terror, innocence defiled, 

Tiny bones that strew the sand of silent places, 
— This upon our own star where Jesus was 
a child. 

Broken buds of April, is there any garden 
Where they yet may blossom, comforted of 
sun, 
While their sad Creator bows to ask their 
pardon 
For the life He gave them, life and death 
in one? 
Spared by steel and hunger, still shall horror 
blazon 
Those white and tender spirits with anguish 
unf orgot ; 
Half a century hence the haggard look shall 
gaze on 
The outrage of a mother, shall see a grand- 
sire shot. 



30 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Man who wings the azure, lassoes the hoof- 
sparkling, 
Fire-maned steeds of glory and binds them 
to his car, 
Cannot man whose searchlight leaves no 
horizon darkling 
Safeguard little children upon our golden 
star? 

THE LEAST OF THESE 

The wolf of want is howling 

At doors no angel keeps. 
Young Mary smiled on her Holy Child, 

But many a mother weeps. 

The Kings of the East brought treasures 

Uncounted and unpriced. 
Who bears a gift to arms that lift 

A little famished Christ? 



MOTHER 31 

MOTHER 

"Mother ! Mother !" he called as he fell 
In the horror there 
Of a bursting shell 
That strewed red flesh on the air. 

Far away over sea and land 
The knitting dropt 
From an old white hand, 
And a heart for an instant stopt. 

But it was Death, dark mother and wise, 

All-tenderest, 

Who kissed his eyes 

And gathered him to her breast. 

MIST 

On the mountain side they fashion, 
Those rifting shreds of storm, 
A figure of strange passion, 
A winged and sworded form. 



$2 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Majestic, wild, colossal, 
With angry arm thrown high; 
Those swaying shoulders jostle 
The glory from the sky. 

Then flows the happy hour. 
That tyrant of the mist 
Turns to a wavering tower 
And melts in amethyst, 

Foretelling thus the cycle 
— O speed it, Holy Dove ! — 
When the Archangel Michael 
Shall vanish into I^ove. 

THE U-BOAT CREW 

Alas, alas for those blond boys who stalk 
Their prey in ambush of the shuddering 
seas, 

Whiling the wait with merry, tender talk 
Of some dear knot of flower-clad cottages 



THE RED CROSS NURSE 33 

Beyond the Rhine ! The merchantship draws 
on; 
Their swift torpedo strikes its mark; the 
sea 
Moans with the dying; for a victory won 

They thank the pagan god of Germany. 

Happier to die the hideous, smothering death, 
Too deep for mercy, in their own snared 
trap, 

Than live to learn how time interpreteth 
The cause they served ; the tragical mishap 

Of pride that pledged The Day and brought 
The Night; 
— Than live to loathe their Fatherland, a 
name 
So high, so fallen, that betrayed their bright 
Young loyalty to savageries of shame. 

THE RED CROSS NURSE 

One summer day, gleaming in memory, 
We drove, my Joy and I, 



34 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Through fragrant hawthorn lanes 

Gold- fringed with wisps of rye 

Brushed off the harvest wains, 

From that old, gladsome town of Shrewsbury, 

Throned on twin hills and girdled by a loop 

Of the brown Severn, out to Battlefield. 

Henry the Fourth with his usurping sword 

Smote here the haughty Percies, 

And after builded here, as due to Him 

Who made rebellion stoop 

And lesser traitors to chief traitor yield, 

A church. Decayed, restored, 

Its centuries afford 

To stranger eyes, enshadowed by the view 

Of that ridged burial plain from which it grew, 

No sight more sacred than a crude 

Image of visage dim, 

Hewn by some ancient tool from forest wood, 

Our Lady of the Mercies. 

Even so long ago amid the slaughter, 
Hushed now beneath its coverlet of flowers, 



TO CANADA 35 

Groped this imperfect dream 

Of Pity, pure, divine. 

Madonna, look to-day upon thy daughter 

And know her by the crimson cross, the sign 

Of love that shall at last, at last redeem 

This war-torn world of ours. 

TO CANADA 

Our neighbor of the undefended bound, 
Friend of the hundred years of peace, our kin, 
Fellow adventurer on the enchanted ground 
Of the New World, must not the pain within 
Our hearts for this wide anguish of the war 
Be keenest for your pain? Is not our grief, 
That aches with all 1 bereavement, tenderest for 
The tragic crimson on your maple-leaf? 

Bitter our lot, in this world-clash of faiths, 
To stand aloof and bide our hour to serve ; 
The glorious dead are living; we are wraiths, 
Dim watchers of the conflict's changing curve, 



36 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Yet proud for human valor, spirit true 
In scorn of body, manhood on the crest 
Of consecration, dearly proud for you, 
Who sped to arms like knighthood to the 
Quest. 

From quaint Quebec to stately Montreal, 
Along the rich St. Lawrence, o'er the steep 
Roofs of the Rockies rang the bugle-call, 
And east and west, deep answering to deep, 
Your sons surged forth, the simple, stooping 

folk 
Of shop and wheatfield sprung to hero size 
Swiftly as e'er your Northern Lights awoke 
To streaming splendor quiet evening skies. 

Seek not your lost beneath the tortured sod 
Of France and Flanders, where in desperate 

strife 
They battled greatly for the cause of God; 
But when above the snow your heavens are 

rife 



THE CONQUEROR $7 

With those upleaping lusters, find them there, 
Ardors of sacrifice, celestial sign, 
Aureole your Angel shall forever wear, 
Praising the irresistible Divine. 



THE CONQUEROR 

Not the Prussian, the forsworn, 
By whose fury overborne, 
Martyred Belgium, you lie 
Bruised with all injury. 
Through your peace red paths he clove, 
Burning, slaying, making spoil 
Of your shining treasure-trove, 
Ancient wisdom, beauty, toil; 
Drenching hearth and shrine and sod 
With the blood that cries to God. 

Futile all that savage force. 
Time in his aeonian course 
Still shall clarion your fame. 
Yours the triumph ; his the shame. 



38 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

On your honor he made war, 
But his guns have battered down 
Only forts. Inheritor 
Of unparalleled renown, 
Belgium, your name shall be 
Brighter than Thermopylae. 

None could scorn you, had you said : 
"Hopeless are the odds, and dread 
Will the fiery vengeance fall 
On our homes. In vain we call 
For help that still delays. We yield. 
But unflinching from your fate, 
Up you flung your slender shield, 
Bore the onset, held the gate 
For the priceless hour, and saved 
Liberty, yourself enslaved. 

No; thrust down to serfdom, still 
Your unmasterable will, 
Your high fortitude and faith 
Outwear exile, anguish, death. 



TO PEACE 39 

On his strip of coast your king 
Holds your glorious flag unfurled; 
Your great priest, unfaltering, 
Peals the truth across the world. 
With your neck beneath the sword, 
You are victor, you are lord. 

— 1917 — 

TO PEACE 

The cup, the ruby cup 
Whence anguish drips, 
At last is lifted up 
Against our lips. 

Though we, till seas run dry, 
Your lovers are, 
How can we put it by, 
Red cup of war? 

We champion your task ; 
Your wounds we bind; 



40 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Behind the battle mask 
Our eyes are kind. 

Upon this foaming edge 

Of blood and flame, 

With shuddering lips we pledge 

Your name. 

OUR PRESIDENT 

God help him ! Ay, and let us help him, too, 
Help him with our one hundred million minds 
Molded to loyalty, so that he finds 
The faith of the Republic pulsing through 
All clashes of opinion, faith still true 
To its divine young vision of mankind's 
Freedom and brotherhood. May all the winds, 
North, south, east, west, waft him our honor 
due! 

For he is one who, when the tempest breaks 
In shattering fury, wild with thunder-jars 



THE NEW CRUSADE 41 

And javelins of lightning that transform 
All the familiar scene to horror, makes 
A hush about him in the heart of storm, 
Remembering the quiet of the stars. 



THE NEW CRUSADE 

Life is a trifle; 
Honor is all ; 
Shoulder the rifle ; 
Answer the call. 
"A nation of traders"! 
We'll show what we are, 
Freedom's crusaders 
Who war against war. 

Battle is tragic; 
Battle shall cease; 
Ours is the magic 
Mission of Peace. 
"A nation of traders" ! 
We'll show what we are, 



42 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Freedom's crusaders 
Who war against war. 

Gladly we barter 
Gold of our youth 
For Liberty's charter 
Blood-sealed in truth. 
"A nation of traders" ! 
We'll show what we are, 
Freedom's crusaders 
Who war against war. 

Sons of the granite, 
Strong be our stroke, 
Making this planet 
Safe for the folk. 
"A nation of traders" ! 
We'll show what we are, 
Freedom's crusaders 
Who war against war. 

Life is but passion, 
Sunshine on dew. 



SOLDIERS TO PACIFISTS 43 

Forward to fashion 
The old world anew ! 
"A notion of traders" ! 
We'll show what we are, 
Freedom's crusaders 
Who war against war. 

SOLDIERS TO PACIFISTS 

Not ours to clamor shame on you, 
Nor fling a bitter blame on you, 
Nor brand a cruel name on you, 

That evil name of treason, 
You who have heard the ivory flutes, 
Who float white banners, brave recruits 
Of Peace, seeking to pluck her fruits 

In bud and blossom season. 

A sterner bugle calls to us; 
More direful duty falls to us; 
God grants no garden-walls to us 

Till the scarred waste be delivered 



44 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

From dragon passions that destroy 
All sanctitudes of faith and joy; 
We, too, are on divine employ; 

By sword shall sword be shivered. 

Cherish your bud, star-eyed of bloom, 
Dawn-flower of hope, belied of gloom, 
While, surges of the tide of doom, 

The gathering nations thunder 
Against a red, colossal throne; 
Cherish it, that the seed be sown 
At last even where that monstrous stone 

Crushes life's roots asunder. 

Follow your flutes the fairy way ; 
Wing- sandaled, climb the airy way, 
The wonderful, unwary way, 

Too lovely for derision; 
While we, your comrades at the goal, 
Step to the drum-beat and unroll 
The flag of Freedom, every soul 

Obedient to its vision. 



THE GERMAN-AMERICAN 45 

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN 

Honor to him whose very blood remembers 
The old, enchanted dream-song of the 

Rhine, 
Although his house of life is fair with shine 

Of fires new-kindled on the buried embers; 

Whose heart is wistful for the flowers he 
tended 
Beside his mother, for the carven gnome 
And climbing bear and cuckoo-clock of 
home, 
For the whispering forest path two lovers 
wended ; 

Who none the less, still strange in speech and 
manner, 
With our young Freedom keeps his plighted 

faith, 
Sides with his children's hope against the 
wraith 
Of his own childhood, hails the Starry Banner 



46 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

As emblem of his country now, to-morrow ; 

A patriot by duty, not by birth. 

The costliest loyalty has purest worth. 
Honor to him who draws the sword in sorrow ! 



NEW ROADS 

Far road for words that rush, 
Arrowing space, 
Swifter than meteors flush 
Star-road in race. 

Wireless! Tireless, leaping the wave! 

Roger Bacon laughs in his grave. 

One road, o'er- steep to climb 
Since world began, 
Winged in our wonder-time, 
Sun-road for man. 

Air-ship! Fair ship, soaring the blue! 

Galileo had burned for you. 

Dread road for Freedom's sons, 
Sworn to release 



THREE STEPS 47 

Life from the threat of guns, 
Red road to peace. 

New knights! true knights! gleam of God's 
blade! 

Lincoln leads in the Last Crusade. 

THREE STEPS 

Three steps there are our human life must 

climb. 
The first is Force. 

The savage struggled to it from the slime 
And still it is our last, ashamed recourse. 

Above that jagged stretch of red-veined stone 

Is marble Law, 

Carven with long endeavor, monotone 

Of patient hammers, not yet free from flaw. 

Three steps there are our human life must 

climb. 
The last is Love, 

Wrought from such starry element sublime 
As touches the White Rose and Mystic Dove. 



48 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Poor world, that stumbles up with many a 
trip, 

A child that clings 

To the great Hand, whose lifting guardian- 
ship 

Quickens in wayward feet the dream of wings ! 



HIS BIT 

Gallantly swung the old carpenter up to his 
door, 
Drums and fifes in his tread, 
But softly he crossed the braided mats on the 
floor, 
Gently he stroked her head. 

"More folks were there at the station than 
ever I knew, 
Bidding the lad good-by. 
Here's a daisy he picked at the platform's 
edge for you, 
Kissing it on the sly. 



WAR PROFITS 49 

"He'll do his part, our boy, on the fighting 
line"; 
— She caught the flower to her lips — 
"And you with your knittting, and I have 
signed up for mine, 
Work on the wooden ships. 

"Oh, but it's hard to be old when the bugles 
call, 
Yet I hav'n't lost my chance. 
I'll be in the shipyard the day the first trees 
fall, 
Before the boy's in France." 

WAR PROFITS 

The horns of the moon are tipped 

With pearl. Her lover, wooed 
By charms and won, Endymion, 
Inherits quietude. 

White the gleam 
Of the dream 
On his eyes. 



50 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

The horns of the sun are dipt 

In ruddy flame that flings 
Adventurous young Icarus 
To earth on ruined wings. 
But he Hew, 
But he knew 

Winds and skies. 

Lucifer's horns have a crust 

Of gold and topaz gem 
On points that thrust to yellow dust 
The heart that covets them. 
Heed! take heed! 
For by greed 
Glory dies. 

BABUSHKA 

Thou whose sunny heart outglows 
Arctic snows; 

Russia's hearth-fire, cherishing 
Courage almost perishing; 



BABUSHKA 5 1 

Torch that beacons oversea 
Till a world is at thy knee; 
Babushka the Beloved, 
What Czar can exile thee? 

Sweet, serene, unswerving soul, 
To thy goal 

Pressing on such mighty pinions 
Tyrants quake for their dominions 
And devise yet heavier key, 
Deeper cell to prison thee, 
Babushka the Beloved, 
Thyself art Liberty. 

Though thy martyr body, old, 
Chains may hold, 

Clearer still thy voice goes ringing 
Over steppe and mountain, bringing, 
Holy mother of the free, 
Millions more thy sons to be. 
Babushka the Beloved, 
What death can silence thee? 



52 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

RUSSIA 

What sudden voice peals to the Caucasus, 
To Finland and the bitter Caspian, 
To those Siberian prisons whither man 
Shall seek as to a shrine, that mutinous, 
Divine word Liberty? Impetuous 
She rises, Holy Russia, shakes the ban 
From her stooped shoulders of colossal span, 
A youth in diamond mail, miraculous. 

Is this the foretaste of a harvest worth 

All agony of its encrimsoned sod? 

Are dreams come true? Does this wild roar 

of wars, 
That wellnigh breaks the shuddering heart of 

earth, 
Sound in the hearing of the far-off stars 
A golden voice of Freedom, voice of God? 



OUT OF SIBERIA 53 

OUT OF SIBERIA 

Shakerags, cripples, gaunt and dazed, 
Prison-broken hosts on hosts, 
Torture-scarred and dungeon- crazed, 
Down the convict road they pour, 
More and more and myriads more, 
Terrible as ghosts. 

Shuffling feet that miss the chain, 
Shoulders welted, faces hoar, 
Sightless eyes that stare in vain, 
Writhen limbs and idiot tongue, — 
They are old who were so young 
When they passed before. 

Grimy from the mines, a stain 
And a horror on the white 
Sweep of the Siberian plain, 
These, grotesque and piteous, these 
Fill the earth with jubilees, 
Flood the skies with light. 



54 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

While each squalid tatter spins 
At the sport of wind and snow, 
Russia hails her paladins, 
And with cheer or sob proclaims 
Long unspoken hero names, 
Names they hardly know. 

They unto themselves are vague, 
Even as they tear the bread 
That their famished fingers beg; 
They themselves are specters, who 
Melt into their retinue 
Of unnumbered dead. 

From the shackles, from the whips, 
Over frozen steppes they stream, 
Quavering songs on ghastly lips, 
Haggard, holy caravan, 
Saviours of the soul of man, 
Martyrs of a dream; 

Martyrs of a dream fulfilled, 
Givers who have paid the price, 



TO ITALY 55 

Homing now to hearths long chilled, 
Guests exalted over all 
At glad Freedom's festival, 
Saints of sacrifice. 

TO ITALY 

Bright valor, smitten by so shrewd a blow, 
Drooping thy golden wing like wounded 

plover, 
What great, grieved faces o'er the battle hover, 
Patriot Mazzini; Fra Angelico, 
Forsaking his own seraphs for thy woe; 
Savonarola, still his country's lover 
Despite the flames ; longing for walls to cover 
With such a fresco, Michael Angelo. 

Pity in those sweet eyes of Raphael 
For all Madonnas whose young sons lie slain ; 
Chagrin in Dante's, that his far-famed hell 
Fades to a fantasy but weak and vain 
By scenes no wildest dream could parallel. 
Vast agony of thy Venetian plain. 



56 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

JERUSALEM 

At last, at last the Crescent 

Falls back before the Cross. 
Great spirits, incandescent 

With longing and with loss, 
Gleam from the clouds, crusaders 

Who knew no requiem 
While Saladin's invaders 

Possessed Jerusalem. 

King David harps for Zion 

A glad, celestial psalm; 
The face of the young lion 

Is toward the sacred palm; 
New Europe's noblest nation 

Has won the diadem 
Of him who brings salvation 

To thee, Jerusalem. 

Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, 

Who cried against thy sin, 



JERUSALEM 57 

Whose vision saw thy famous 

Bright bulwarks beaten in 
And made a cup of trembling, 

God's house a broken gem, 
On all the winds assembling 

Comfort Jerusalem. 

The Christ, Messiah proven, 

Whose Gentile armies free 
Thy walls, not battle- cloven, 

But won with jubilee; 
As when thy people, pressing, 

Would touch His garment's hem, 
Enters with love and blessing 

Thy gates, Jerusalem. 

Arise and shine, O City, 

The joy of all the earth ! 
Show poverty God's pity; 

Teach misery God's mirth. 
Be thou to all the nations 

A light, ay, even to them 
Who wrought thy tribulations, 

Holy Jerusalem! 



58 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 



OUR FIRST WAR-CHRISTMAS 

Hard to wait for the postman's tramp 
Up the snowy walk, for the hand that 

gropes 
Deep in his pack, while the children 

tease 
For the rainbow-ribboned packages, 
And women wax faint with their fearful 

hopes 
For those tattered, grimy envelopes 
With the foreign stamp, 
— Word, dear word from overseas, 
From the fleet, the trench, the camp. 

Oh, not jewels nor curious toys 
Of art and fashion, no gift most rare 
Can gladden those eyes that weep in the 

hush 
Of lonely nights, can bring the flush 
To faces white with their silent prayer, 



TO HEAVY HEARTS 59 

Like the letters, precious beyond compare, 
From our soldier-boys, 
Letters to laugh over, cry over, crush 
To the lips, our Christmas joys. 

TO HEAVY HEARTS 

Heavy hearts, your jubilee 

Droops about the Christmas Tree. 

Sudden sighs cut off the laughter, 

For a haunting pain comes after 

All your gallant glee, 

— Pain for your soldiers far away to-night, 

(O cloud that darkens on the Christmas star!) 

Sons, husbands, those who wreathed your 

world with light, 
Far, far, so far. 

Be comforted! They never were so near. 
In life's deep center of self-sacrifice 
You meet with vision clear. 
There in love's purest paradise 
The touch of soul on soul is close and dear. 



60 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Not to-night shall soft cheeks glow 

Where the Druid mistletoe 

Weaves its charm, while hollies twinkle; 

For the lads in some grim wrinkle 

Of the earth crouch low. 

Hard is their Christmas in the aching trench, 

Or in the listening darkness mounting guard, 

Haggard with cold and sick with creeping 

stench, 
— Hard, hard, so hard. 

Be comforted! That hardness is their pride. 
Salute the strength that can endure the stress 
Of such a Christmastide. 
Our earth made beautiful shall bless 
Their stern young manhood nobly testified. 

Silver chimes are on the air, 

Sweet and blithe — too blithe to bear ; 

And what singing hearth rejoices, 

Missing the beloved voices 

That were merriest there? 

The booming cannon are their Christmas bells ; 



THE PURPLE THREAD 6l 

(O Holy Child, how many a homeless waif!) 

Their carols are the hiss and crash of shells. 

God keep them safe! 

Be comforted! For safe they are within 

His quiet hand, your soldiers who fulfil 

In steadfast discipline, 

Like those calm stars, His patient will 

That is the peace beneath all battle-din. 



THE PURPLE THREAD 



The priests distributed various coloured silken 
threads to weave for the veil of the sanctuary; and 
it fell to Mary's lot to weave purple." — The Book 
of the Bee, ch. XXXIV. 



The chosen maidens, Weavers of the Veil, 
Kneeling in crescent, from the High Priest 

took 
Their wisps of silk in slender hands that shook 
Lifting the colors to their lips rose-pale 
With holy passion, — colors like the frail 



62 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Spring flowers of Carmel, blue as that glad look 

Of dancing iris, scarlet as a nook 

Of wild anemones, or gold as sail 

Seen from its summit 'neath the Syrian moon. 

But Mary caught her breath in one swift sob 

Of pain uncomprehended ere it fled, 

Leaving her heart with some strange fear 

a-throb, 
For the wise priest, as one conferring boon, 
Had meted out to her a purple thread. 

ii 

O mothers of the race, ye blessed ones 
Who weave with cherubim the veil before 
The Holy Place of God, the mystic door 
Of life, proud mothers of beloved sons, 
To-day you send them forth to front the guns, 
Waving your boys farewell with smiles that 

pour 
Strength into their young souls. Your pray- 
ers implore 
The Mercy Seat ; your love, an angel, runs 



freedom's battle-song 63 

Before them with wild, shielding arms out- 
spread. 
O Weavers of the Veil, however varies 
The silk assigned, exceeding great reward 
Is yours, for you — O you, most sacred 

Maries, 
To whom is given grief's royal, purple 

thread — 
Make beautiful the temple of the Lord. 

FREEDOM'S BATTLE-SONG 

Red, white, blue, the flag that leads us 
on, 

Stripes as red as blood well shed by many a 
hero gone. 

Now 'tis ours to storm the towers of tyranny 
and wrong, 

Freedom's sons who front the guns with Free- 
dom's battle-song. 

Fly the -flag from dome and steeple, 
Fly the Hag from home and school. 



64 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Flag of Freedom's birth, 
While we battle that the rule 
Of the people 

By the people 

For the people 
Shall prevail o'er all the earth. 

Red, white, blue, the flag that leads us on, 
White as peace for whose release our fighting- 
gear we don ; 
Peace enchained, crushed, profaned, shall yet 

in beauty stand, 
Yet shall bless with fruitfulness her desolated 
land. 
Fly the Hag from dome and steeple, 
Fly the Hag from home and school, 
Flag of Freedom's birth 
While we battle that the rule 
Of the people 
By the people 

For the people 
Shall prevail o'er all the earth. 



freedom's battle-song 65 

Red, white, blue, the flag that leads us on, 
Blue as skies whose starry eyes shall see our 

victory won. 
Freedom's sons and champions, to her our 

hearts are true, 
We who fight for Human Right, and the Red, 
White, Blue. 
Fly the Hag from dome and steeple, 
Fly the flag from home and school, 
Flag of Freedom's birth, 
While we battle that the rule 
Of the people 
By the people 

For the people 
Shall prevail o'er all the earth. 



Overseas 



STARLIGHT AT SEA 

Over the murmurous choral of dim waves 
The constellations glow against the soft 
Ethereal dusk, — forever fair, aloft, 
Serene, while man climbs painfully from caves 
To cities, clamorous cities, life that raves 
Like surf against the rocks. It is not oft 
Our cities glimpse the stars, their luster scoffed 
Away by low, hard glitter that outbraves 
Night's blessing of the dark. But here upon 
Mid-ocean, all whose muffled voices ring 
A rapture lost to our vexed human wills, 
We see the primal radiance that shone 
On chaos, — see the young God shepherding 
His gleaming flocks on the empurpled hills. 

WINGS 

Gray gulls that wheeled and dipped and rose 

Where tossing crests like Alpine snows 

Would shimmer and entice; 

69 



JO THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

A stormy petrel, Judas soul, 

Dark wanderer of the waste, whose goal 

No mariner hath seen ; 

And flaming from the vanished sun 
A wondrous wing vermilion, 
A bird of Paradise, 

A soaring wing that shone so far 
The orient horizon bar 
Flushed, and the sea between 

Like an Arabian carpet glowed 

With changeful hues where subtly flowed 

Some magical device; 

And one pale plume in heaven's dim dome 
Above that fairy-colored foam, 
The new moon's ghostly sheen. 



MAN OVERBOARD J I 



§ 



MAN OVERBOARD 

Young, the naked stoker who went 
Mad with the fires and leapt to the sea, 
Eoyhood still in the voice that sent 
One shrill cry back from eternity. 

Perchance from the phosphorescent gleams 
That shot through our wake of swirling foam, 
On his delirious brain flashed dreams 
Of a waiting mother, an English home. 

The ocean clad him in cool, soft robe ; 
The ship fled on, as the guilty flee; 
And the sun, a crimson-belted globe, 
Slipped down to comfort him under the sea. 

THE LIGHTHOUSE 

In seas far north, day after day 
We leaned upon the rail, engrossed 

In frolic fin and jewel spray 

And crystal headlands of the coast. 



72 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Those beauties held so long in gaze 
Have melted from my mind like snow, 

But still I see through rifted haze 
The wizard tower and portico 

That flashed one instant, white and whist, 
A grace too exquisite to keep, 

A picture springing from the mist 

As a dream comes shining out of sleep, 

I do not know what name he wrote, 
Our captain, in his good ship's log, 

For that sea-wraith,— how men denote 
Our fleeting phantom of the fog; 

But yet across the world I thrill 
With rapture of that ivory gleam, 

That sudden shaft of glory, till 
It wears the wonder of a dream. 



'•the titanic" 73 

THE "TITANIC 

As she sped from dawn to gloaming, a palace 

upon the sea, 
Did the waves from her proud bows foaming 

whisper what port should be? 
That her maiden voyage was tending to a 

haven hushed and deep, 
Where after the shock and the rending she 

should moor at the wharf of sleep ? 

Oh, her name shall be tale and token to all the 

ships that sail, 
How her mighty heart was broken by blow 

of a crystal flail, 
How in majesty still peerless her helpless head 

she bowed 
And in light and music, fearless, plunged to 

her purple shroud. 

Did gleams and dreams half-heeded, while the 
t days so lightly ran, 



74 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Awaken the glory seeded from God in the soul 

of man? 
For touched with a shining chrism, with love's 

fine grace imbued, 
Men turned them to heroism as it were but 

habitude. 

O midnight strange and solemn, when the ice- 
bergs stood at gaze, 

Death on one pallid column, to watch our hu- 
man ways, 

And saw throned Death defeated by a greater 
lord than he, 

Immortal Life who greeted home-comers from 
the sea. 

THE THRACIAN STONE 

'The faieries gave him the propertie of the 
Thracian stone; for who toucheth it is exempted 
from griefe." 

The fairies to his cradle came to play their 
fairy part, 
Their footsteps like the laughter of a leaf ; 



THE THRACIAN STONE y$ 

They touched him with the Thracian stone 
that setteth free the heart 
— O dream-enchanted, singing heart! — for- 
ever free from grief. 

The wind it could not blow a way that failed 
to please him well ; 
Beyond the rain he saw the March skies blue 
With hope of April violets; he cast his fairy 
spell 
Over our flawed and tarnished world, creat- 
ing all things new. 

He bore the burden of his day, the burden and 
the heat, 
As blithely as a seagull breasts the gale, 
Glorying that God should trust his strength. 
The color of ripe wheat 
Was on his life when it was flung beneath 
pain's threshing-flail. 

He fronted that grim challenge like some re- 
splendent knight 



76 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Who rides against foul foes of fen and 
wood; 
With ringing song of onset, his spirit, hero- 
bright, 

Went tilting with a sunbeam against the 
dragon brood. 

Then dusky shapes stole on him, Queen of 
the Quaking Isle, 
Queens of the Land of Longing and the 
Waste ; 
He bowed him to their bidding with a secret 
in his smile ; 
He quaffed their bitter cups that left am- 
brosia on the taste. 

Last came the King of Terrors, and lo! his 
iron crown 
Had twinkled to a silver fairy-cap; 
Like two old friends they took the road to 
Love-and-Beauty town, 
That's here and there and everywhere on 
all the starry map. 



APOLLO LAUGHS J J 

APOLLO LAUGHS 

"Apollo laughs," the proverb tells, 
Far echo of old oracles, 
A Delphic waif, — "Once in the year, 
Apollo laughs." O laughter clear 
As sunshine, blithe as golden bells! 

What mortal folly parallels 
Olympian jest and so impels 
To mirth till Heaven's bright charioteer, 
Apollo, laughs? 

Tis when the annual critic knells 
The death of poetry, while swells 
Some faint, fresh wood-note, pioneer 
Of music earth shall thrill to hear. 
Then at Apollo's infidels 
Apollo laughs. 



?8 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

SHAKESPEARE'S FESTIVAL 

While we keep our Poet's Tercentennial, 
Every school and city with its emulous 
Antic or solemnity, what tremulous 
Laughter on the air! O Puck perennial! 

Leave us clumsy mortals to our drolleries, 
Strenuous gambols of Shakespearean grati- 
tude, 
And be off to find him in Beatitude, 
Win his genial glance with elf cajoleries, 

And then tell him of our sage frivolity 
Till his golden laughter wake eternity, 
And about him flock his old fraternity, 
All his scapegrace fellows of the quality, 

Greene not jealous, Heminge no more stam- 
mering, 
Marlowe one white flame of passion glorious, 



LYDD 79 

Rare Ben modest, vagabonds victorious, 
All about the Master crowding, clamoring, 

Talking all at once in odes and triolets, 
Sonnets like the stars for prodigality, 
While Will Shakespeare loafs with Immor- 
tality 
On a stolen bank of Arden violets. 



LYDD 

For the Reunion of the Bates Family at 
Quincy, August 5, 1916 

Far away on the sunny levels 
Where Kent lies drowsing beside the sea, 
Where over the foxglove as over the foam 
The gray gull sails, is our ancient home. 
Wide though we wander, something follows, 
The cradle-call from a village hid 
Under the cloud of rooks and swallows 
That love its thatches and orchards, Lydd. 



8o THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Here they sported in rustic revels, 

Our sturdy forbears, while ale flowed free, 

Richard and Susan and Sybil and John, 

All their jollity hushed and gone; 

Our grandsires proud of their scraps of Latin, 

Our grandams, ''notable huswifs" all ; 

We may touch the very settles they sat in, 

But they, like their shadows upon the wall, 

Have slipped from their sweet, accustomed 

places, 
Stephen, Samuel, Ellen, Anne. 
The pewter flagons they valued so 
Stand, though battered, in shining row, 
But the hands that scoured them, long since 

folded, 
Lips that smacked over them, long since dust, 
Are known no more in the town they molded 
To civic honor and neighbor trust. 

Ah, for their quaint, forgotten graces. 
Flushing raptures of maid and man, 



LYDD 8 1 

James and Alice, Thomas and Joan, 
Blood of our blood and bone of our bone! 
Only the trampled slabs and brasses 
That floor the aisles of the old church tell 
Their dates and virtues to him who passes, 
How long they labored in Lydd, how well. 

Their Catholic sins have all been shriven, 
And their Puritan righteousness pardoned, 

too. 
Lax and merry, or holy and harsh, 
They have flown to Heaven from Romney 

Marsh, 
Lydia, David, Joshua, Zealous, 
"Katharine Spinster/' yet still on earth 
Their wraiths abide in our being, jealous 
For the brief, blunt name and its modest 

worth. 

For each of us is phantom-driven, 
A haunted house where a glimmering crew 
Of dear and queer ancestral ghosts 
Quarrel and match their family boasts, 



82 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Color our hair and fashion our noses, 
Shape the deed and govern the mood; 
In every rose are a thousand roses; 
Every man is a multitude. 

A patchwork we are of antique vagaries ; 
Primitive passions trouble our pulse. 
"Margery, relict of Andrew Bate/' 
Clement, Rachel and William hate 
And adore in us. No vain sunriser 
In all our clan, but he owes the praise 
To some progenital dew-surpriser 
Who knelt to the dawn in pagan days. 

Sailors that steered for the misty Canaries, 
Fishers whose feet loved the feel of the dulse, 
Agnes, Simon, Julian, George, 
Faithful in kitchen, hayfield and forge, 
Give us our dreams, our sea-love, the voices 
That speak in our conscience, rebuke and for- 
bid. 
Hark! In our festal laughter rejoices 
A quavering note from the graves of Lydd. 



THIS TATTERED CATECHISM 83 

THIS TATTERED CATECHISM 

This tattered catechism weaves a spell, 
Invoking from the Long Ago a child 
Who deemed her fledgling soul so sin-defiled 
She practised with a candle-flame at hell, 
Burning small fingers, that would still rebel 
And flinch from fire. Forsooth not all be- 
guiled 
By hymn and sermon, when her mother 

smiled, 
That smile was fashioning an infidel. 

"If I'm in hell/' the baby logic ran, 
"Mother will hear me cry and come for me. 
If God says no — I don't believe He can 
Say no to mother." Then at that dear knee 
She knelt demure, a little Puritan 
Whose faith in love had wrecked theology. 



84 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

WHEN CAPN TOM COMES HOME 

When Cap'n Tom comes home, and his sea 
chest 
Is opened, oh, the shells that rainbow foam 
Tossed on far shores, by us to be possessed 
When Cap'n Tom comes home! 

Cocoanuts for which gray, chattering mon- 
keys clomb ; 
Tamarinds, and dates, and luscious sweet- 
meats pressed 

Into blue jars of quaint pagoda dome! 

Canaries, corals, shimmering shawls and, best 
Of all, keepsakes that on wild seas a-roam 
He carved from whale's tooth for a village 
blest 

When Cap'n Tom comes home! 



AT STONEHENGE 85 

AT STONEHENGE 

Grim stones whose gray lips keep your secret 

well, 
Our hands that touch you touch an ancient 

terror, 
An ancient woe, colossal citadel 
Of some fierce faith, some heaven-affronting 

error. 

Rude-built, as if young Titans on this wold 
Once played with ponderous blocks a striding 

giant 
Had brought from oversea, till child more 

bold 
Tumbled their temple down with foot defiant. 

Upon your fatal altar Redbreast combs 
A fluttering plume, and flocks of eager swal- 
lows 
Dip fearlessly to choose their April homes 
Amid your crevices and storm-beat hollows. 



86 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Even so in elemental mysteries, 
Portentous, vast, august, uncomprehended, 
Do we dispose our little lives for ease, 
By their unconscious courtesies befriended. 



GEORGE MACDONALD 

I heard him preach in Oxford years ago, 
A snowy-haired and tender-faced apostle. 

I watched the beech against the window blow, 
And listened to the throstle. 

And still a waving branch to memory brings 
Those deepset eyes and drooping lids as 
pressed 

Upon too much by earthly visionings 
And wistful for their rest. 

Still in the flutings of a thrush will sound 
Words that upon us then but lightly fell, 

Because they were as simple and profound 
As some brief parable 



THE PRESENCE CHAMBER 87 

Told by the iviaster to the hungry folk, 
While the disciples murmured, but the foam 

Wrote it again on Patmos, and it spoke 
Above the rage of Rome. 



THE PRESENCE CHAMBER 
(Switzerland) 

Behold a temple builded not by hands. 

Columns of mist, all shimmering with sun, 

Stream heavenward from the deep-cut vales 
that run 

Between the mountains, and the vault ex- 
pands, 

Splendor of turquoise, groined with opal 
bands. 

Cloud tapestries, of pearl and amber spun, 

Veil in that glorious pavilion, 

Mosaic-paved with cities, lakes and lands. 

But far withdrawn in utter light of light, 

Holy of Holies, is the God to whom 



88 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Our souls, that make their own enshrouding 

night, 
Lift piteous prayer : "Deliver us from gloom," 
Yet shrink affrighted from the answering, 

white, 
Unbearable Divine that would illume. 



SPAIN 

Across New England snows 
Flash visions from afar, 
Lithe gipsies on their toes 
Dancing to gay guitar; 
With gesture fierce, bizarre, 
They lilt some old refrain 
In whose wild measures are 
The witcheries of Spain. 

The stinging north wind blows, 
But with a ruddy jar 
Poised on her proud head goes 
A maiden like a star 



SPAIN 89 

While, biting his cigar, 
Her lover, scorned again, 
Loads on his ass-drawn car 
The oranges of Spain. 

As keen as cameos 
Against yon gray cloud-bar 
Shine out a tower of rose, 
A spire like flaming spar, 
Gold shrines whose candles char 
The world to ashes, train 
Of pilgrims, globular 
Pomegranates flushed with Spain. 

What freak of calendar, 
What frostwork on the pane, 
What angry sleet can mar 
My picture-book of Spain? 



90 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

MY LADY OF WHIMS 

(A medieval Spanish legend slanderously set- 
ting forth the utter unreason of woman.) 

Romaquia sat and wept her 

Lace mantilla full of tears. 

King Abit laid by his scepter, 

Left the Council of the Peers. 

"Now what sorrow makes thee cry, mate ? 

Queen of Seville, sobbing so ?" 

" Tis your Andalusian climate. 

Oh, I want to see the snow." 

"Speak thy wish and it is granted; 

Thine to bid and mine to please." 

All the hills and plains he planted 

With a myriad almond trees. 

When the suns of February 

Made them white with blossoming, 

Romaquia was so merry 

That she kissed the happy king. 



MY LADY OF WHIMS 91 

"Every ill has its panacea," 
Wrote the learned King Abit, 
Smiling on his Romaquia, 
While he wondered at his wit. 

Romaquia sat and wept her 

Dainty fan into a dud. 

King Abit threw by his scepter 

With an unmajestic thud. 

"What's the trouble, top of treasures ?" 

"See those women by the flood 

Kneading bricks, but I've no pleasures. 

I can't dabble in the mud." 

Loud he called his master mason 

And in bower of eglantine 

Built a jade and jasper basin, 

Filled with rose-water and wine. 

Then for mud he poured in spices, 

Ginger, mace and cinnamon, 

Sugar, honey, syrups, ices, 

That the Queen might have her fun, 



92 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

"Every ill has its panacea" 
Wrote the learned King Abit, 
Wondering if his Romaquia 
Recognized her husband's wit, 

Romaquia in her garden 

Watered all the trees with salt 

Till they faded, and the warden 

Was beheaded for the fault 

Of his lachrymose sultana. 

Oleander, citron, balm, 

Orange, lemon and banana, 

The pomegranate, myrtle, palm, 

All were drooping for distresses 

That the Queen poured out in tears, 

Pouting at the King's caresses 

Till he longed to box her ears. 

"Let me be!" she snapped. "You squeeze 

me, 
Clumsy thing! You never try 
In the very least to please me, 
So of course I have to cry." 



NORTHWARD 93 

"Every ill has its panacea/' 
Wrote the rueful King Abit, 
"Every ill but Romaquia. 
Wives' caprices wear out wit." 

NORTHWARD 

These palms weave shadows of delight, 
But the truant heart flies forth 

To birch-boles glistening more than white 
In the forests of the North. 

GRAVES AT CHRISTIANIA 

We bore them their own wild heather 
And ash-boughs jeweled red, 
There where they sleep together, 
Greatest of Norway's dead. 

More than the hush of churches 
Is the hush where Ibsen lies, 
Columned by poplars and birches, 
Vaulted by glorious skies. 



94 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Over that heart undaunted 
Soars a shaft of labrador, 
Black yet beauty-haunted, 
Marked with the hammer of Thor. 

But what memorial lifted 
To Bjornson, loved of the folk? 
We sought till our quest had drifted 
Where tender voices spoke, 

Where never a rail encloses 
That resting-place of fame, 
A little plot of roses, 
Nameless nor needing name. 

THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON 



Blue as blossom of the myrtle 
Smiled the steadfast eyes of Olaf 
On the host of ships that harried 
His enraged, gold-glittering Dragon, 



THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON 95 

Snared within that ring of sea-birds, 
By their fierce beaks rent and bitten; 
All men knew the crimson kirtle, 
Rich-wrought helm and shield that dazzled 
Back the whirling wrath of sword-edge, 
But the king, while doom yet tarried, 
Bleeding fast beneath his byrny, 
Still throughout the savage hurtle 
Of the ax-play and the spear-play, 
Blinding storm of stones and arrows, 
Shivering steel and shock of iron, 
Stood erect above the slaughter, 
An unblenching lord of battle, 
Till about his knees were drifted 
Heaps of slain, his last earl smitten. 
From the poop then sprang King Olaf, 
Faring on his farthest journey, 
With his shield above him lifted, 
Shield whose shimmer mocked the rattle 
Of the missiles rained upon it, 
Down into the deep sea-water. 



96 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Nevermore shall he thrust keel 
Into billow, fain to feel 
Pull of rudder 'neath his hand, 
Swing of tide that bears his folk 
On to spoil some startled strand, 
Rick and homestead wrapt in smoke. 
All the daring deeds are done 
Of King Olaf Tryggvison. 

11 

As the red-stained waves ran o'er him, 
Faithful to their friend, sea-rover, 
Hid the flickering shield forever 
From the fury of his foemen, 
Hushed the war-din to his hearing, 
Sweetened on his swooning senses 
Even that wild roar of victory, 
Through the dim green gloom appearing 
Women's faces flashed before him. 
Fair the first, but wan with vigil, 
Mother-tender, mother-valiant, 
Face of Astrid, she who bore him 



THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON Q? 

On a couch of ferns and clover 
In a little, lonely island, 
Warded only by her fosterer, 
Old Thorolf, who would not sever 
His rude service from her sorrows; 
She who flitted with her man-child 
On from fen to forest, hunted 
By the murderers of his father, 
Every rustling branch an omen 
Of the dangers darkening over 
That rich seed of frail defenses; 
She whose last look smiled him cour- 
age, 
Rosy wean of three rude winters, 
When the pirate crew had seized them, 
Sold the gold-haired boy and mother 
Into sundering thraldom, slaughtered 
Old Thorolf as stiff and useless. 
Then the face of Queen Allogia, 
Like a sudden shield, white- shining, 
Raised between the vengeful blood-wrath 
And the lad whose earliest death-blow 



98 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Smote the slayer unforgotten 
Of Thorolf. Soft gleamed another, 
Younger face, white rose of passion, 
Geira, to whose grace her lover 
Bowed his boyhood's turbulences, 
Gentled in that blissful bridal, 
Till death stole upon their joyance, 
Gathering her fragrant girlhood 
Like a flower, and frenzy-driven 
Forth King Olaf fared a- warring, 
South-away to sack and harry 
Every quiet shore that silvered 
On his homeless, waste horizon. 
Still amid the flying splinters 
Of the swords, and famous morrows, 
When the Norns did as it pleased them 
With their secret shuttle, twining 
In the pattern of his life-days 
Strands of mirth and splendor only 
For the rending, for the strewing 
On the whirlwind, still the Viking 
Was of women loved and hated. 



THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON 99 

Swift their faces glinted on a 
Drowning sight, — the Irish Gyda, 
Wise of heart to ken a hero, 
Stepping by her silken suitors, 
Choosing for her lord the towering, 
Shag-cloaked Northman, rough and royal; 
Then Queen Sigrid, called the Haughty, 
With the blow his glove had given 
Whitening on her lips, a striking 
That became his scathe; young Gudrun, 
Who, to her slain father loyal, 
Would her bridegroom's breast have riven, 
Glorious as he slept beside her, 
With a stab too long belated, 
With the steel he, waking, wrested 
From that slender hand; and Thyri, 
Clinging, coaxing, pouting, weeping, 
Craving still the thing denied her, 
With a sting in all her sweetness, 
Yet to him a new Madonna 
For the baby-boy who nestled 
On her bosom, all bedrifted 



IOO THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

With her yellow hair, their starry 
Little son too dear for keeping, 
Tender guest that might not tarry, 
Though upon those tiny temples, 
Crystal cold beneath the kisses, 
Like midsummer storm came showering 
Down the last wild tears of Olaf, 
Ever longing, ever lonely. 

Nevermore to him,, who there 
Chokes with brine, shall maidens bear 
Honey-mead in well-carved cup, 
While the harpers strike the strings, 
And the songs and shouts go up 
Till the hollow roof-tree rings. 
All the wine of life is run 
For King Olaf Tryggvison. 

in 

All had vanished from the vision 
Of those blue eyes, blankly staring 
Through that pall of purple waters, 



THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON IOI 

Through that peace below all motion 

Of intoning tides and billows, 

Where sad palaces are peopled 

By the gods he had forsaken. 

Too divine for vain derision 

And the empty sound of censure, 

Wondered they upon the waster 

Of their temples, their blasphemer, 

As that drifting body rested 

On the knees of Ran, the husher 

Of all hearts beneath the ocean. 

Many mariners, far- faring 

By the swan-road, subtly taken 

In her nets, have proved her pillows 

Soft with slumber. Azure-vested 

Clustering came her thrice-three daughters, 

While her lord, the hoary iEgir, 

From his castle coral-steepled 

Wended slow, the seaweed woven 

In his mantle. Comely Niord, 

Crowned with shells, and mystic Mimir, 

Ay, and many another followed, 



102 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Musing on this altar-crusher, 

On this sleeping king, awaker 

In a realm not theirs, this taster 

Of strange bread and wine, this dreamer 

Of the new dream that had cloven 

Even their dusk region hollowed 

Out of chaos by All-Maker, 

By the Power past peradventure. 

Nevermore shall Olaf's rod 

Smite a silent, oak-hewn god; 

Nevermore shall Olaf's torch 

Fire great Woden's house, or Thor's, 

Where the stubborn heathen scorch, 

Constant to their ancestors, 

— Souls too steadfast to be won 

By King Olaf Tryggvison. 

IV 

From that pallid body parted, 
Sped the proud, impetuous spirit 
Forth to seek his throne of splendor, 



THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON IO3 

Not the benches of Valhalla 

In the ancient Grove of Glistening, 

Palace wrought of spears, roofed over 

With gold shields, the tiles of Woden, 

Where brave warriors feast forever 

On the boar's flesh, making merry 

With the foaming mead, with minstrels 

And the hero-sport of battle, 

But that far more dazzling dwelling 

Of the young God radiant-hearted, 

Christ, whose loyal earl was Olaf. 

Oh, what welcome would he merit, 

He, the new faith's fierce defender, 

Forcing thousands, as a droves 

Urges wild, unwilling cattle, 

To the font, their blond heads shrinking 

From the sacred dew? Who would not 

Be faith-changers, take the christening 

At his gracious word, gainsayers 

Of his will, had been the players 

In grim shows, — maimed, torn asunder, 

Stoned, slow- strangled with the swallowing 



104 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Of live snakes. So did he sever 
Norway from her shrines, excelling 
All Christ's folk in fealty. Should not 
Horns blow up for him in Heaven, 
Olaf Tryggvison, who even 
Had the wizards well outwitted, 
Bidding them to feast, and firing, 
While they drowsed there, dull with drinw 

ing, 
Hall and all ; caught those who flitted, 
Chained them fast on tide-swept skerry, 
Sorcerers whose best spell- singing 
Had not stayed the waves from following? 
Are not saints and angels listening 
For his rumored coming, choiring 
Till their praises are as thunder 
Of great minster-bells a-ringing? 

Olaf stood imparadised 

In the loneliness of Christ, 

Of the White Lord Christ, Who said: 

"Only precious stones of pity, 



THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON IO5 

Holy pearls of peace may build 

For each soul the Shining City, 

When in thee is Heaven fulfilled, 

I shall claim my champion, 

Not King Olaf Tryggvison, 

But my shepherd Mercy, fed 

On Love the wine and Love the bread/' 



From Spring to Spring 



NOT YET 

Not yet hath Nature, lovely colorist, 
Bestirred her from creative dream to fling 
Soft flame upon the woods, — nay, not to dip 
One pleading maple-tip 
In carmine ; all the waiting world is whist, 
Alert to hear the first faint flutes of spring. 

Not yet the tingling flood of blue and gold 
Is poured through heaven, but o'er the misty 

pond, 
Quiet as patterned silk, flushed saplings lean ; 
And the auspicious green 
Through the deep woods and on the unpathed 

wold 
Brightens in patient moss and wistful frond. 

Not yet cascades of melody invoke 

The holy dawn, but all the air perceives, 

109 



IIO THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

By some fine thrill, the rushing northward 

flight 
Of myriad wings, despite 
The nonchalances of this crookback oak, 
Still clinging to its russet shreds of leaves. 

Not yet the laughing hid-folk of the earth 
Thrust up white helm and golden coronet, 
Sweet elfin host armored in gossamer, 
But gentle tremors stir 
The conscious mold; new beauty comes to 

birth 
Under the snow's fast-melting coverlet. 

Not yet, not yet the yearly miracle 

Is wrought, but ecstasy is on the wing, 

And her divine, irrevocable flight 

Is swift as all delight. 

The heart is hushed as for the sacring-bell, 

Awe-smitten by expectancy of spring. 



THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS III 

THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS 

The poor earth was so winter-marred, 

Harried by storm so long, 

It seemed no spring could mend her, 

No tardy sunshine render 

Atonement for such wrong. 

Snow after snow, and gale and hail, 

Gaunt trees encased in icy mail, 

The glittering drifts so hard 

They took no trace 

Of scared, wild feet, 

No print of fox and hare 

Driven by dearth 

To forage for their meat 

Even in dooryard bare 

And frosty lawn 

Under the peril of the human race; 

And then one primrose dawn, 

Sweet, sweet, O sweet, 

And tender, tender, 

The bluebirds woke the happy earth 

With song. 



112 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

IN THE OAK 

The leaves and tassels of the oak 
Were golden-green with May, 

Pavilion whence forever broke 
Some angel roundelay. 

A carol like a glory came 

From topmost twig astir, 
Enkindled by a flying flame, 

The scarlet tanager. 

The tree was glad as Paradise 

When, eager soul on soul, 
The saints flock home. There glistened 
twice 

A wild- throat oriole ; 

And once the grosbeak's rosy breast 

Poured its enchanted hymn; 
While sunny wing and jewel crest 

Lit many a blissful limb. 



THE END OF MAY II3 

The whole wide world was in my oak 
Whose catkins danced for mirth, 

— Plumes gray as curling city smoke, 
Plumes brown as fresh-plowed earth; 

Even heaven had graced our festival, 

For oft the loving eye 
Would find, coaxed by a wistful call, 

The bluebird's fleck of sky. 

THE END OF MAY 

The fragrant air is full of down, 
Of floating, fleecy things 
From some forgotten fairy town 
Where all the folk wear wings. 

Or else the snowflakes, soft arrayed 
In dainty suits of lace, 
Have ventured back in masquerade, 
Spring's festival to grace. 

Or these, perchance, are fleets of fluff, 
Laden with rainbow seeds, 



114 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

That count their cargo rich enough 
Though all its wealth be weeds. 

Or come they from the golden trees, 
Where dancing blossoms were, 
That now are drifting on the breeze, 
Sweet ghosts of gossamer? 



EAVESDROPPING 

Though the winds but stir on their hoary 
thrones 

Of hemlock and pungent pine, 
All the whispering woodland tones 

Gossip of things divine, — 

Why God is gray in the granite rock, 
And green in the lichen flake, 

And swift in the darting swallow-flock, 
And slow in the lapping lake; 

Why God is sweet in the hermit-thrush, 
And hoarse in the frog; and why 



WAY WISE 115 

His touch on the bee is golden plush, 
And gauze on the stinging fly; 

Why God is life in the mushroom there, 
And death in the toadstool here; 

Mirth in the dancing maidenhair; 
In its hidden adder, fear. 

Oh, if this berry that stains my lip 
Could teach me the woodland chat, 

Science would bow to my scholarship, 
And Theology doff the hat. 



WAYWISE 

The darkest wood that the north-wind stings 
Hath its balsamum and its silverlings, 
Its violet interspace. 

The bitterest sea that the wan moon knows 
Hath its hushful archipelagoes, 
Its coral populace. 



Il6 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

And the weariest burden mortal bears 
Hath, woven in with its somber cares, 
Some broidery of grace. 

IN A NORTHERN WOOD 

Fragrant are the cedar-boughs stretching 

green and level, 
Feasting-halls where waxwings flit at their 

spicy revel, 
But O the pine, the questing pine, that flings 

its arms on high 
To search the secret of the sun and escalade 

the sky! 

Rueful hemlocks, gaunt and old, with boughs 

a-droop, despairing, 
Clutch for touch of mother-earth; the while 

the pine is daring 
To rock the stars amid its cones and lull them 

with its croon, 
And snare the silver eagle that is nested in 

the moon, 



THE CREED OF THE WOOD 117 

THE CREED OF THE WOOD 

A whiff of forest scent, 
Balsam and fern, 
Won from dreary mood 
My heart's return, 
From its discontent, 
Joy's run-away, 
To the sweet, wise wood 
And the laughing day. 

Simple as dew and gleam 
Is the creed of the wood ! 
The Beautiful gave us life, 
And life is good. 
Be the world but a dream, 
Let the world go shod 
With peace, not strife, 
For the Dreamer is God. 



Il8 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

OUR FIRST FAMILIES 

Sweet are the manners of the wood, 

Our only old society, 
Where all the folk are glad and good 

In unrebuked variety. 

Within this gentle commonweal 
No envy falls with fairy gold 

On jewel-weed and Solomon's seal, 
Moth mullein and marsh marigold. 

No rubied vines despise the lot 

Of ragged neighbors; whether moss 

Be flat or tufted matters not, 

Pale peat or glittering feather-moss. 

The common milkwort holds estates 
And wears his purple royalty; 

The bluets keep their ancient traits 
With quiet Quaker loyalty. 



THE PERFECT DAY II9 

These families of long descent, 

Our tutors in amenities, 
Have pedigrees of such extent 

They well may share serenities. 

Ere first the hollow Catacombs 

Thrilled to a Christian litany 
There bloomed beside the redmen's homes 

Spicebush and fragrant dittany. 

This rock's huge shadow rested on 

Gentian and nodding trillium 
Before the rise of Babylon, 

Before the fall of Ilium. 

THE PERFECT DAY 

God made a day of blue and gold, 

Sweet as a violet, 
As merry as a marigold; 

It may be shining yet 
In some blest vale, some dreamy dell 

Among the heavenly hills, 



120 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Where here and there the asphodel 

Is flecked by daffodils 
And gentians, flowers that twinkled on 

The fields our childhood knew, 
Too lovely for oblivion, 

Fed with immortal dew. 

That summer day, all murmurous 

With laughters of old mirth, 
How tenderly 'twould comfort us, 

Still homesick for the earth; 
With what dear touch 'twould fold us in, 

As to a mother's knee, 
From those strange spaces crystalline 

Of vast eternity, 
— A day God saw with smiling eyes, 

The summer's coronet! 
In His far cycles of surprise 

It may be shining yet. 



IN AUGUST 121 



IN AUGUST 



Beside the country road with truant grace 
Wild carrot lifts its circles of white lace. 
From vines whose interwoven branches drape 
The old stone walls, come pungent scents of 

grape. 
The sumach torches burn ; the hardhack glows ; 
From off the pines a healing fragrance blows ; 
The pallid Indian pipe of ghostly kin 
Listens in vain for stealthy moccasin. 
In pensive mood a faded robin sings ; 
A butterfly with dusky, gold-flecked wings 
Holds court for plumy dandelion seed 
And thistledown, on throne of fire weed. 

The road goes loitering on, till it hath missed 
Its way in goldenrod, to keep a tryst, 
Beyond the mosses and the ferns that veil 
The last faint lines of its forgotten trail, 
With Lonely Lake, so crystal clear that one 
May see its bottom sparkling in the sun 



122 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

With many-colored stones. The only stir 
On its green banks is of the kingfisher 
Dipping for prey, but oft, these haunted nights, 
That mirror shivers into dazzling lights, 
Cleft by a falling star, a messenge r 
From some bright battle lost, Excalibur. 

PLAYMATES 

Summer fervors slacken; 

Sumac torches dim; 
There's bronze upon the bracken ; 

September has a whim 
For carmine, pearl and amber 

Touches oh her green ; 
Busy squirrels clamber; 

Restless birds convene. 

Where Indian pipe still blanches, 
Where hoary lichen flakes 

Forest trunks and branches, 
The golden foxglove makes 



PLAYMATES 12$ 

A mimic wood that tosses 

Warning to the trees, 
Then droops upon the mosses, 

Heavy with bloom and bees. 

What rumbelow of revel 

Deep in those honey- jars! 
A saffron moth, with level 

And languid motion, stars 
The air until he settles 

At the last pink-clover inn, 
Ignoring prouder petals 

That would his favor win. 

Among those wildwood vagrants 

I strolled, alone no more. 
Was it the sweet- fern fragrance 

That stirred a long-sealed door 
Of Time's enchanted tower? 

A little maid ran free 
And for one sunny hour 

My childhood played with me. 



124 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

APRIL IN SEPTEMBER 

What song is in the sap of this brave oak-tree 

That to the north-star faces, 
Ravened each June by caterpillar masses 

Till all its leaves are laces, 
Poor shreds whose very shadow grieves the 
grasses ? 

I leave it then, but roses and the smoke-tree 

Look from the lawn below it 
And watch for that gold witch, Midsummer 
Weather, 
With magic breath to blow it 
Free of its foes, whose wings make mirth 
together. 

Vital as Igdrasil, immortal folk-tree, 

When I return, its losses 
Are all restored, its fresh, soft foliage gleam- 
ing 

With peach and citron glosses, 
A Druid that is never done with dreaming. 



A MOUNTAIN STORM 12$ 

A MOUNTAIN STORM 

Our blue sierras shone serene, sublime, 
When ghostly shapes came crowding up the 

air, 
Shadowing the landscape with some vast 

despair ; 

And all was changed as in weird pantomime, 
Transfigured into vague, fantastic form 
By that tremendous carnival of storm. 

Pilgrim processions of bowed trees that climb 
To sacred summits, in the clashing hail 
Shuddered like flagellants beneath the flail. 

Most gracious hills, in that tempestuous time, 
Went wild as angered bulls, with bellowing 

cry 
And goring horns that strove to charge the 

sky. 



f 

126 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Masses of rock, long gnawed by stealthy rime, 
With sudden roar that made our bravest 

blanch, 
Came volleying down in fatal avalanche. 

All nature seemed convulsed in some fierce 

crime, 
And then a rainbow, and behold! the sun 
Went comforting the harebells one by one; 

And all was still save for the vesper chime 
From far, faint belfry bathed in creamy light, 
And the soft footfalls of the coming night. 



NIGHT AND MORNING 

The night was loud with tumult; trees were 
torn 
Sheer from their roots by the delirious wind ; 
In some waste dreamland wandered all for- 
lorn 
A smitten soul, bewildered, broken, blind. 



THE SUNSET, WOVEN OF SOFT LIGHTS \2*J 

The mists had lifted; evanescent gleams 
Of tender emerald lighted every leaf, 

While from a casement smiled, escaped from 
dreams, 
A quiet face made exquisite by grief. 

THE SUNSET, WOVEN OF SOFT 
LIGHTS 

The sunset, woven of soft lights 
And tender colors, lingers late, 
As looking back on all day's dreary plights, 
Compassionate ; 

—The foolish day of hopes so high, 

Who counts her hours by blunders now, 
Yet wears at last this jewel-crown of sky 
Upon her brow. 

Out to eternity she goes, 
Not for her failure scorned, but see! 
Our poor day flushed with beauty, one more 
rose 

On God's rose-tree. 



128 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

WHITE MOMENTS 

The best of life, what is it but white moments ? 

Those swift illuminations when we see 
The flying shadows on the fragrant meadows 

As God beholds them from eternity. 

White moments, when the bliss of being wor- 
ships, 

And fear and shame are heretics that burn 
In holy fire of exquisite desire 

For love's surrender and for love's return. 

White moments, when a Power above the 
artist 
Catches his plodding chisel, sets it free, 
And from each urgent stroke there springs 
emergent 
The wayward grace that laughs at industry. 

White moments, when the drowsing soul, 
sense-muffled, 
Is stung awake by some keen arrow-flight 



WHITE MOMENTS I2g 

And rends the bestial, claiming its celestial 
Succession in the lineage of light. 

White moments, when the spirit, long con- 
fronted 

By all the bitter formulae of fate, 
Inveterate romancer, finds its answer 

In some mysterious faith inviolate. 

White moments, when the silence steals on 
sorrow, 

And in that hush the heart becomes aware 
Of wings that brood it, visions that seclude it 

Forevermore from folly, fear and care. 

The best of life, what is it but white moments ? 

Freedoms that break the chain and fling the 
load, 
Irradiations, ardors, consecrations, 

— The starry shrines along our pilgrim road. 



I30 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

AROUND THE SUN 

The weazen planet Mercury, 
Whose song is done, 
— Rash heart that drew too near 
His dazzling lord the Sun! — 
Forgets that life was dear, 
So shriveled now and sere 
The goblin planet Mercury. 

But Venus, thou mysterious, 

Enveiled one, 
Fairest of lights that fleet 
Around the radiant Sun, 
Do not thy pulses beat 
To music blithe and sweet, 
O Venus, veiled, mysterious? 

And Earth, our shadow-haunted Earth, 

Hast thou, too, won 

The graces of a star 

From the glory of the Sun? 



AROUND THE SUN I3I 

Do poets dream afar 

That here all lusters are, 

Upon our blind, bewildered Earth? 

We dream that mighty forms on Mars, 
With wisdom spun 
From subtler brain than man's, 
Are hoarding snow and sun, 
Wringing a few more spans 
Of life, fierce artisans, 
From their deep-grooved, worn planet 
Mars. 

But thou, colossal Jupiter, 
World just begun, 
Wild globe of golden steam, 
Chief nursling of the Sun, 
Transcendest human dream, 
That faints before the gleam 
Of thy vast splendor, Jupiter. 

And for what rare delight, 
Or woes to shun, 



132 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Of races increate, 
New lovers of the Sun, 
Was Saturn ringed with great 
Rivers illuminate, 
Ethereal jewel of delight? 

Far from his fellows, Uranus 
Doth lonely run 
In his appointed ways 
Around the sovereign Sun, — 
Wide journeys that amaze 
Our weak and toiling gaze, 
Searching the path of Uranus. 

But on the awful verge 

Of voids that stun 

The spirit, Neptune keeps 

The frontier of the Sun. 

Over the deeps on deeps 

He glows, a torch that sweeps 

The circle of that shuddering verge. 



BEYOND 133 

On each bright planet waits 

Oblivion, 

Who casts beneath her feet 

Ashes of star and sun, 

But when all ruby heat 

Is frost, a Heart shall beat, 

Where God, within the darkness, waits. 

BEYOND 

Colossal orb of space, 

Sparkling with diamond 

Of countless star on star, 

All whirling with wild grace 

In their enwoven dance 

inimitably far, 

What lies beyond 

Your vasty hollow girdled by that bright 

River of stellar spray 

We call the Milky Way? 

Immeasurable ball, 

Compassed and clasped in light, 



134 T HE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Can you be all, 

A flock of fireflies circling in the night, 

A maze of jewels that the toss of Chance 

Let fall, 

Sun, planet, asteroid, 

One globe of glories in the utter void? 

What lies beyond? 
Does the sheer Dark immerse 
Infinity, drowning the last faint gold 
Of fleeting comets, lost and vagabond? 
Or is this astral universe, 
All that our utmost vision may behold, 
But one amidst a host of star-strewn spheres, 
Each zoned with its own stream 
Of softer gleam, 

Perchance each dowered with wonder, love 
and tears? 

What lies beyond? 
The puny human heart still stirs 
Against those flaming barriers, 
That proud, impenetrable dome 



NEW YEAR 135 

Of fire and ether, seeking for a home, 

A Soul that shall respond 

To all its questions, longings and despairs. 

Is space but raiment that the Spirit wears, 

A gem-embroidered mantle to conceal 

And yet reveal 

In splendors of surprise 

Beauty ineffable, 

Immanuel ? 

Or shall we rise, 

Higher than dream of Dante ever trod, 

From star to star, from empyrean on 

To empyrean, till the sun that shone 

Over our vexed mortality be wan, 

Through life on life, eternal range 

From form to form, from change to change, 

To find the Unknown God? 

NEW YEAR 

White year, white year, 

Muffled soft in snow, 

A diamond spray whose gems are gone 



I36 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

Before their grace we know, 
A crystal-coated spray whose hours 
Melt when looked upon, 
Hoarfrost stars and hoarfrost flowers, 
White year ! 

Green year, green year, 
Sweet with sun and showers, 
A windblown spray whose blossoms bright 
Are the seven-colored hours, 
A dancing spray whose leaves are days, 
A spray whose leaves delight 
In azure gleam and silver haze, 
Green year! 

New Year, new year 
From rosy leaf to gold, 
A shining spray on the Tree of Time 
Where myriad sprays unfold, 
A spray so fair that God may see 
And gather it, bloom and rime, 
To deck the doors of Eternity, 
New Year! 



YELLOW WARBLERS 1 37 

YELLOW WARBLERS 

The first faint dawn was flushing up the skies 
When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes, 
I looked out to the oak that, winter-long, 
—A winter wild with war and woe and 

wrong — 
Beyond my casement had been void of song. 

And lo ! with golden buds the twigs were set, 
Live buds that warbled like a rivulet 
Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew 
Those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew, 
Those flying daffodils that fleck the blue, 

Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles, 
Wee pilgrims of the sun, that measure miles 
Innumerable over land and sea 
With wings of shining inches. Flakes of glee, 
They filled that dark old oak with jubilee, 

Foretelling in delicious roundelays 

Their dainty courtships on the dipping sprays, 



I38 THE RETINUE AND OTHER POEMS 

How they should fashion nests, mate helping 

mate, 
Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate 
To keep sky-tinted eggs inviolate. 

Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once 

more 
From lyric dawn through dreamland's open 

door, 
And there was God, Eternal Life that sings. 
Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things, 
A nest of stars, beneath untroubled wings. 



POEMS BY 

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The Historian and Poet of Mysticism 

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These books of pure and exquisite verse 
are mystical in the finest sense, and pro- 
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There is solace and refreshment in these 
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681 Fifth Avenue New York City 

(15) 



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Under the titles "Happy Ones/' " Wistful 
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E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
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(16) 



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